Tag Archives: medicine

I love my blog. If I want to complain about something I almost feel like I have an excuse to write about it on here. I don’t like hearing people complain much so I try not to do it either, but today I can’t help it. I’m just fed up with my body – I feel like it’s just falling apart…and I’m only 31!

Medicine

These are all the medicines I’ve acquired in less than 30 days, and it actually isn’t even all of it. It looks like I’m deathly ill. I expect to be going to the doctor a lot when I’m old, but 5 doctor visits in less than a month is ridiculous at the age of 31. 13 weeks ago an episode of my cluster headaches started. Hello permanent bad mood! I just suffered through the worst pain in my life 3-4 times a day and since no medicine will help, the only thing that got me through was knowing they wouldn’t last forever and that I wouldn’t die…at least not from the headaches. They usually leave in 8-10 weeks so I just kept counting down the days.

Then around the 21st of October I got this dull pain in my left side that would come and go. On the 22nd I noticed it a little more and even more on the 23rd. By the 24th it was getting pretty bad. I was sitting at the dinner table and then went to lay on the floor. That was a mistake. I could barely roll over it hurt so much. I finally got off the floor and went to take a bath to try to ease the pain – because a bath helps anything, right? Wrong! It was like I was in labor having contractions again. I told Michael to take me to urgent care and after a few hours of tests and x-rays, they told me it was a kidney stone. Nice. While I was there on the ER table I was fortunate to have one of my headaches too. Somebody up there wanted to make sure I was suffering. Over the next few days, the pain in my side got better and then was completely gone.

Soon after that, I decided that I had had enough pain and decided to call a neurologist. Of course the last one I saw was no longer in practice (why can’t anything just be easy?) so I got some recommendations from my boss and called the guy he recommended. I was told that he is the best in the area and that it might take a while to get an appointment. I called and they said the earliest appointment available was April. Wow. So I tried to make an appointment with the other doctor but then they told me that I needed a referral from my primary care doctor. So, off I go to my primary care doctor. I thought it was funny that after I told him my symptoms and what I had, he went and looked on the internet for what the best medicine was for cluster headaches. He prescribed Verapamil and the nasal spray of Imitrex. I’ve tried the nasal spray before but it didn’t work (hence why it’s still in the box). Then I wait for my call back to tell me when my referral appointment will be.

They finally call me back and I finally have an appointment with a neurologist on Monday, 11/19. I hadn’t had a headache for about 5 days before that so I was really hopeful that they were gone. But Monday morning I woke up with a dull pain, like I get right before it gets really bad, and it stayed like that all day. So I guess they’re not completely gone. It’s now been 13 weeks, which is the longest episode I’ve ever had…I just hope that’s not a trend as I get older. Anyway, I really liked the doctor – he did some tests, ordered an MRI, explained everything, and answered all my questions. He told me to keep taking the medicine that my primary care doctor gave me, and he also gave me the Imitrex shots that I could do myself. For the first time ever I actually want to have another headache to see if the shots will work. But I’ll be happy if I don’t get a chance to use it! The doctor said that next year when my headaches come back that we can try an occipital nerve block to block the pain from the nerve. He said they usually last 2-3 months, about the same time as an episode.

So yesterday I was feeling pretty good after leaving that appointment, hopeful that my headaches were going away and that I could get back to my normal life. Last night I got ready for bed and used the bathroom and felt the familiar symptoms of a bladder infection starting. I hate bladder infections with a passion. They are such a pain and if I let them go more than a day without going to the doctor I’ll pass out from the pain. Normally I go straight to the doctor, urgent care, wherever as soon as I know I’ve got one but Michael was at work and the kids were asleep so I tried to tell myself that I was just imagining it. But after waking up every 30 minutes throughout the night, I realized it was for real. Thank goodness I had some leftover medicine for pain from my last bladder infection that I was able to take. This morning I went straight to the doctor to get some antibiotics and I think I’m back on the road to recovery. For today at least 🙂